BOOST MOBILE | Boost Your Voice | 2017
The Day a Phone Store Became a Polling Place / BOOST MOBILE "Boost Your Voice"
During the 2016 US presidential election, a Boost Mobile phone store became an actual polling place. It was the first time ever that a private company's store became an official polling location. The campaign was serious enough, in a not-even-a-little-funny way, that it won multiple Grand Prix at Cannes.
The problem
In America, there's a real gap in access to voting. Low-income and minority neighborhoods have fewer polling places, and people end up waiting for hours. In 2016, there were 868 fewer polling places than the previous election, and some people waited up to nine hours. Obama even said the US was "the only advanced democracy that systematically makes it harder for its people to vote." Boost Mobile's customers are mostly Black and Hispanic people earning around $30,000 a year, often juggling multiple jobs. They were exactly the people who had the hardest time exercising their right to vote.
The insight
It started with one comment from Karla, an employee at 180LA: "I don't vote. It's just too hard." For her, living in East LA, voting wasn't something she could squeeze in for ten minutes on the way home from work. The paid media budget was zero. So the idea became: why not use what we already have — turn our own stores into places where people's voices could be heard?
The idea
On Election Day, November 8th (11/8), Boost turned its stores into real polling places. A team of 30 people spent six months calling 817 counties across the country, eventually winning over stores in places like Chicago, Atlanta, and Southern California. At stores that couldn't become official polling places, they held "Party at the Polls" events instead. They put together get-out-the-vote events with artists like Chance the Rapper, built a website to help people find their polling place, and even made "Voter" apparel.
What happened
In areas where Boost stores became polling places, voter turnout increased by 23%. At Cannes Lions, the campaign won Grand Prix in both the Promo & Activation and Integrated categories, plus a Titanium Lion.
Afterthought
This was the day a phone store became part of the infrastructure of democracy. There was no budget — just 817 phone calls, and someone who didn't let Karla's one comment slip by unnoticed. A small idea that nobody overlooked. That's really all it takes for purpose to turn from words into action.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2017
Featured in
- The Ad Is Gone, But the System RemainsFrom a university for taxi drivers to a sidewalk you can read with a cane
